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©ur Nation's Sina awh t!)c ^IjrbtiaiVs IDuhj. 



FAST DAY DISCOURSE, 



DANIEL FOSTER, 



MINISTER IN CHARGE OF THE 



CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH OF CONCORD, MASS., 



DELIVERED 



APRIL IOth, 1851 



BOSTON: 

WHITE & POTTER, PRINTERS. 
185 L 



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DISCOURSE. 



We have met to-day in compliance with the invitation of our Gov- 
ernor, to keep the annual Fast, which was estabUshed by our fathers as 
a stated yearly service in the very infancy of New England. In the 
Proclamation, appointing this Fast Day, we are invited, among other 
things, " to consider, in the spirit of Christianity^ the private and pub- 
lic sins of this community.'''' I propose to respond by a serious and 
earnest discussion to-day, of this subject, — our Natio7i's sins arid the 
Christianas duly. You will find my text in the 64th chapter of Isaiah, 
a single clause of the 5th verse : " We have sinned.'''' 

The Prophet speaks for Israel, for the ivhole nation in these words : 
And now this day, may the minister of Christ, as the representative of' 
this whole nation, take up this language and say, we, the most highly 
favored of all the families of this earth, have greatly abused our high 
privileges, shamefully neglected our precious opportunities, and with 
stubborn will, " have we sinned.'''' 

I ask your attention now to a brief statement of our National his- 
tory: 

Within the memory of some who are alive to-day, this country was 
subject to Great Britain, and numbered fewer inhabitants than are now 
held as slaves in the Southern States. But our fathers were oppressed 
in various ways by the government, which treated them as aliens and 
strangers, and they resolved, at length, that they could not submit longer 
to this oppression, without the entire loss of manhood and honor. And 
therefore they declared themselves independent of the government 
which oppressed them, and pledging fortune, life, and honor, in the 
great issues which they dared, they reared aloft the standard of Liberty, 
and gathered beneath its folds, entering upon a doubtful, protracted, and 
severe struggle for the precious right of self-government. On that 
glorious standard the wondering nations saw divine truth, even the very 
doctrines of the gospel of peace and good-will which God had given to 



men. Wehold these truths to he self-evident, that all men are created 
equal, and are e7idowed by their Creator with certain inalienahlc rights. 
The right to Lije, to Liberty, to the Pursuit of Happiness, each in his 
own chosen loay, these are inalienable rights. Our fathers declared 
these truths to be sef-evident, i. e. so plain that no argument or illus- 
tration can be needed to demonstrate them to ihe mind. Just as the 
fact that light emanates from the sun is self-evident, needing no effort 
of argument or illustration to make it obvious to our optic faculty, so 
are these truths declared to be self-evident that all men, Greek and Jew, 
Scythian and Roman, White and Black, without respect to place of 
abode or condition in social life — all are created equal and endowed by 
their Creator with certain rights which cannot justly be abridged or 
taken from them by their fellow men, except as a punishment for hei- 
nous crime. The right to Life, the right to personal Liberty, the right 
to individual choice in the profession or occupation to be followed in 
life, is each an inalienable right, which God has given to all his intelli- 
gent children. The only limitation to these rights is one that God has 
made in the command to do no evil, and in the sanction by which that 
command is enforced. 

Avowing these principles to the world, our fathers engaged in the 
war of the Revolution, aided by the generous sympathy and unremitted 
efforts of such noble men from other lands as Lafayette, Pulaski, 
Steuben, Montgomery, and DeKalb, men who were attracted to their 
cause by the glory of their published principles, by their own love of 
Liberty, by their hatred of oppression, by the humanity and nobility of 
unpervcrted hearts. In this momentous struggle our fathers were suc- 
cessful and their national independence was, at length, acknowledged 
by the whole Commonwealth of nations. Then follow the efforts of 
those brave men to form a government. The same men who put forth 
the great Declaration, were engaged in the formation of our national 
Constitution. The objects avowed in the preamble of this Instrument 
are worthy to be ranked with the noble principles of the old Declaration. 

" We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more 
perfect Union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquillity, provide 
for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the 
blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and 
establish this Constitution for the United States of America.'''' 

Under the Constitution ordained and established by the people of this 
country, for the noble ends above enumerated, the Fedei-al Government 
commenced its existence sixty-two years ago. During these sixty-two 
years the States of our Union have increased from thirteen to thirty- 
one, the population from three to twenty-three millions, the resources of 
our country — its houses, and shops, and stores — its acres of cultivated 
soil — its internal and external commerce — its churches and its schools 
— its towns and villages and cities, have all multiplied in this, time 
in the same wonderful ratio, except where the institution of Slavery has 
been maintained to retard our growth and blight our prosperity. The 
increase of slavery, the increasing might and arrogance of the slave- 



power, in these years of our nation's first expansion and growth, are 
facts of startling import, of saddest augury. There are more slaves in 
this Republic to-day than the entire population of this country when our 
fathers began to agitate the question of independence. More of God's 
children, of Christ's redeemed ones, now held in hopeless bondage, by 
degenerate sons of nobler sires, than the entire free population of the 
old thirteen, sixty-two years ago. 

I come now to the consideration of my main topic in this discourse 
— The Nation'' s sin and the Christia7i's duty. And I ask you to look 
at this sin first in the light of our departure from the noble principles 
of our fathers. It is true they permitted slavery to continue in the land. 
And when the Constitution was formed, they gave up the control of this 
institution to the States in which it was then to be found. We mourn 
that our fathers were so unwise and wicked as to compromise at all with 
slavery. We would make no attempt to shield them from the censure 
which they deserve, for suffering slavery to live a day after the adoption 
of the glorious Declaration. Sadly do we acknowledge that slave- 
holding was a dark stain in the character of Washington, Jefferson, 
Henry, Madison, and other venerated and great men of that era. 

Yet we are doing simple justice only by saying that they desired and 
looked for the speedy extinction of slavery. Openly did they avow the 
doctrine, now so widely and fiercely denounced, that slavery is wrong. 
Wrong, both as respects God's arrangements and as respects man's 
rights. Washington made no secret of his hope and expectation that 
Virginia, his native State, and then the first State in influence in the 
Union, would devise means for the removal of slavery from her midst, 
for its entire abolition at no distant day. Washington openly declared 
that his influence and vote should at all times be ready for the removal 
of this wrong by legislative action in his own State. 

Jefferson denounced American slavery as the worst form of oppres- 
sion the world had ever seen. He declared one hour's endurance 
thereof worse than the oppression which drove our fathers into the 
Revolution. He well said that he trembled for his country, when he 
thought that a just God ruled over the nations of the earth, to whom 
the s&fferings and wrongs of the slave would call for vengeance. 
The man who spoke these noble words was the author of the Declara- 
tion of Independence, and as an honest man could do no less than de- 
nounce and oppose American slavery, which subverts every one of 
the self-evident truths of that sublime production. 

Lafayette generously aided our fathers in their darkest hour. His 
memory is cherished by Americans next to that of Washington. His 
visits to this land, after our Union was formed, were like the triumphal re- 
turn from distant and dangerous enterprises of the distinguished old 
Roman Commanders, to the proud Mistress of the world. His words 
therefore have weight and interest to us on this subject. Well this is what 
Lafayette said on his last visit to this country, at a public dinner given 
him in Salem, at which Judge Story presided. When the old French 
Democrat was called upon to make a speech in answer to a toast pro- 



6 

posed in honor of the great services which he had rendered, he said 
most distinctly thai he never would have spent a doUarnor struck a blow 
Jor American Independe7ice, had he not been icell assured, that tee hon- 
estly meant to secure the freedom of the slave, by gaining our own. 

Madison was unwilling to introduce the word slave or slavery into 
the Constitution. Luther Martin and other Southern men of note at 
that day denounced shivery with unsparing bitterness and in the most 
public manner. " When the Constitution was formed, slavery was j9er- 
mitted to exist for a little period, that it might prepare itself to die. 
Whoever studies the sentiment of that day, will see that men no more 
intended the perpetuation of slavery in this republic, than again to 
place the yoke which they had broken upon their own nt!cks. Mark 
the contrast. One of the first acts of legislation then, was to prohibit 
slavery in all that territory which had not been formed into States. In 
a later time, we admit States that prohibit the abolition of slavery for 
ever. Then, all the territories belonging to the country were declared 
to be free. Noio, we receive new regions, far wider than miglity em- 
pires, in which we sanction human bondage. Then, slavery, as upon its 
bended knees, pleaded for a brief delay in the execution of the sen- 
tence of death which seemed to be issued against it, in the funda- 
mental principles of the republic, and the living spirit of the nation. 
In a later generation, slavery has assumed the dominion, and Liberty 
herself has been dumb in its presence." Were Washington and Jef- 
ferson now living at the South, they could not now speak of slavery, 
as they were accustomed to do sixty years ago,, without endangering 
their lives ! 

How difierent now the sentiments entertained by leading men at the 
South ! And how great, how startling the departure of our Statesmen 
and rulers from these honest Democrats of the Revolution ! 

The doctrine is now openly defended in our National Council halls, 
that slavery is a divine institution, a perpetual ordinance of God, the 
proper relation beticeen the laborer and his emjAoyer, the corner stone 
of this great Federal Republic. 

This dark creed is devoutly professed by the politicians of the South 
of all parties, and is preached from almost every pulpit there, and it is 
practically the faith on which our leading Statesmen of the North in 
their apostacy act. By their deeds shall ye knoiv them. We judge 
them by this rule and say of Webster and Cass, of Winthrop and 
Dickinson, of Douglass and Fillmore, they are among the oppressors 
of the suffering sons and daughters of Toil. 

In our fathers' days the ministry preached against slavery, were 
known as abolitionists, and their influence was potent in the speedy 
removal of this curse from New England and from New York. 
Jonathan Edwards, his brethren in the ministry, and their descendants 
of the same faith and order were earnest abolitionists. They preached 
against slavery and the slave-trade, then in full operation around them, 
often to the periling of their support, till the public conscience was 
aroused and slavery abolished. The noble Channing, who exerted a 



greater influence against the slave power than any other minister of his 
day, was the pupil of the celebrated Dr. Hopkins, a noted leader of the 
Orthodox Church, and only carried out in his sphere the instruction of 
his earnest and pure-hearted teacher, who was himself a thorough and 
powerful opponent of American slavery and the slave trade. The 
minister on whom fell the mantle of Roger Williams could be no less 
than a thorough abolitionist. The same is true, also, of the minister ' 
who truly followed John Wesley, who was an uncompromising enemy 
to American slavery. 

How sad the change in the religion of this land in these dark years ! 
Sad, at least, so far as the course of the popular ministry is a true 
index of the sentiment of the people. The rulers of our nation and 
all our partizans stand ready now to brand with the name of infidels 
and traitors, the minister who imitates the example of the Apostles, 
obeying God rather than man, and declaring the whole counsel of God 
whether men will hear or whether they will forbear. Now Doctors of 
Divinity, Theological Professors, and Ministers of large and wealthy 
churches, join hands with our wicked Rulers, and in the name of God 
bid us obey, without hesitation, a law of utter and unparalleled wick- 
edness ! Yea, they bid us go if our country should call us, to the 
battle-field in support of this law, and in God's name take the life of its 
opposers ! 

This counsel is given by the well-known Mr. Rogers of the Winter 
Street Church, in a sermon inculcating obedience to this law, and pub- 
lished in the Boston papers, as the voice of the good Father of all ! 

We had a Judiciary once, that sought Justice and Truth, Judgment 
and Mercy ; but now our Judges, Marshals, and Commissioners are 
the pliant tools of the slave-power. Kain, Curtis, Judson, Ingraham, 
Hallett and others, who know beyond doubt the atrocity of their con- 
duct, for some paltry consideration are hastening to prostitute the judi- 
cial power invested in their hands, to meet the base demands of the 
slave-power. Our supreme court is intensely pro-slavery. This de- 
cides all Constitutional appeals, and so the last legal resort for the at- 
tainment of justice is in the hands of the slave power. 

Our fathers passed the ordinance of '87, by which they consecrated 
a vast empire to freedom. We know full well that they intended by 
that decree to localize, limit and discourage slavery. Their degenerate 
sonSj having secured a place in Congress by solemn pledges to main- 
tain this ordinance in the organization of the new territories, violate 
their word, barter their birth-right, for the false smile of slavery, and be- 
tray their sacred trust. They vote down the proviso of freedom and 
open vast empires for the extension and perpetuation of human bondage. 
The arch-traitor who secured this disastrous result, offers in excuse, the 
plea that to pass this proviso is re-enacting the laws of God, by which 
without our aid, slavery is surely excluded. He knew and the loorld 
knows to-day the utter falseness if this base plea. Slave-holding judges 
are appointed and other territorial officers, whose policy is well known 
to be favorable to slavery, to rule over these territories and mold their 



8 

institutions and laws and customs. Hugh N. Smith, nominated by the 
President as Secretary of New Mexico, has just been rejected by the 
Senate of the United States, because he is known to be in favor of the 
Declaration of Independence, which declares all men created with the 
inalienable right to be free. In the meanwhile slavery is established 
in the territories of New Mexico and Utah, as all supposed it would be, 
when the vote of Congress, repudiating the great Proviso, was secured 
by the South through the aid of traitors from the free States. Slavery 
exists in these territories to-day, and soon we may be called on to admit 
them to our Union as slave States 

Our Constitution was adopted " by the people " " in order to form a 
more perfect Union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquillity, pro- 
vide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure 
the blessings of liberty to themselves and their posterity. " Mr. Ran- 
toul in a recent public speech at Lynn says, " I value the Union and 
the Constitution because of their great purpose; — so long as they 
accomplish that purpose, so long are they the highest political bles- 
sings. And if they ever cease in the Providence of God, to accom- 
plish that great purpose, they heconie worthless, they may hecome even 
a curse. " As our Constitution is now expounded and applied, and as 
this Union is now cemented by the woes of millions of slaves, I ask 
you, have they not " become a curse ? " Our government is administered 
now by a terrible perversion of this Constitution, in the hands of rene- 
gades and traitors, in order to establish injustice, to stir up sectional 
hale, to j)romole the selfish aggrandisement of an intolerant class, the 
merest minority of the people, at the sacrifice of the general welfare, 
and to take from the toiling, defenceless poor and from their children 
after them, the " blessings of Liberty.'''' I challenge the scholar to point 
out a chapter in the history of nations, so dark in the degeneracy which 
it portrays, as the story of this nation's action on the subject of slavery 
for the last sixty years. 

We sometimes see the same thing exemplified in the downward 
career of an individual, who starts from a high point of light and truth 
and noble aims, but through a sad infirmity of moral purpose, led on 
by a wicked ambition, and lured by unholy pleasures, goes down the 
steep path of sinful indulgence, into the infamy and woe of a self-sought 
and hopeless ruin. There is a life yet to be written, which will illus- 
trate with a painful interest and power the apostacy of this nation. I 
refer to one gifted by his heavenly father with transcendent abilities, — 
born and nurtured through all his early years among the institutions of 
New England, who went forth into the strife of a stirring life with deep 
religious convictions, with noble aims in view. On Plymouth Rock, on 
Bunker Hill, on all the fields made rich and sacred by patriot blood of 
Revolutionary sires, there poured forth — an offering to Liberty — his 
voice has been recognized giving utterance to some of the noblest sen- 
timents, and most sweetly spoken ever heard on earth. The Old 
Commonwealth has lavished her honors upon him, her adopted and 
best beloved son. But he has fallen and is now a wretched, ruined old 



man. He went aside from the straight path of rectitude, led on by 
ambition, lured by impure passions, from one degree of baseness to 
another and deeper, till, on the seventh of March, 1850, he stood up 
in his place in the Senate of the United Stales, and publicly disowned 
the noble principles of his early and innocent days, and offered his own 
shameless service to the cruel slave-power. Now you may see that 
proud intellect darkened and debased, and the beloved chatnpio7i, the 
very Samson of New England^ the j)^nsioned agent of oppression, 
grinding in the prison-house of the Philistines ! 

So it is with our National Government. The slave-power is potent, 
not only to debase and ruin those who are guilty of holding slaves, not 
only blinds those criminals to the truth and right, and arrays them on 
the side of falsehood and wrong, but it corrupts also our statesmen, our 
law-makers, our judges, our preachers, our public men of all classes, 
so that now on whatever side the poor dependent sons and daughters of 
toil turn for protection from the dangers which menace them, through 
the remorseless and oppressive slave-power, they find themselves 
betrayed. 

The mighty, the gifted, the great, the leaders among the people are 
false to their trust. Degenerate sons of worthy sires, they are striving, 
with parricidal hands, to overthrow the institution of Liberty, which 
their fathers toiled and bled, and died to found and establish — a lasting 
inheritance of good to their children. On the ruins of freedom's sacred 
home, would these parricides now build up the temple of slavery. 
Who can see the contrast between the principles of our fathers and of 
their sons at this day, as we have now but feebly set it forth, and not 
instantly shrink back in alarm from the, fearful degeneracy ichich this 
dark contrast marks ? 

And yet there is a bright aspect, to which I now most gladly turn, for 
a brief moment. Our Statesmen are corrupt, bought up and used for 
unholy purposes by the slave-power. But there is a remnant found 
faithful even here. We have our trusted and our trustworthy Palfrey, 
on whom the mantle of the departing sage of Quincy seemed to fall. 
We have sent him to Congress and mean to keep him there to battle in 
our legislative halls for truth and justice and right. We have our 
own true-hearted Mann, whose inspired words, like the prophet Call, of 
olden time, win the people back to the allegiance of their fathers. 
And there is our beloved Sumner, whose vast stores of learning, whose 
unequalled eloquence, whose highest hopes and efforts are all conse- 
crated to Liberty, Peace and Brotherhood. Not always shall treachery 
and fraud shut him out from the post to which the people call him to 
regain the honor lost by another fallen Senator. We have our Phillips, 
too, whom the people justly love and trust, who left his party and sac- 
rificed his prospects on the altar of duty, when that party went to 
Mexico, and took from the bloody fields of that land the hero of a 
pro-slavery war as its candidate for the Presidency. 

Many of our popular ministers go hand in hand with our corrupt 
Statesmen in the unholy strife against humanity, and counsel, as God's 



10 

will, obedience to a wicked law. Still more, perhaps, influenced by 
a craven fear of losing support, refuse to " cry aloud and spare not," 
in pleading for God's truth, — the cause of the suffering brotherhood, 
which is now nailed to the cross. But there are noble men " faithful 
among the faithless found," — true ministers of God, whose words glow 
with the love of Jesus, and are alive with his humanity. May God 
grant us more such true Gospel ministers as Beecher and Parker to 
scatter the seed which shall spring up into wide spread and endless 
blessedness. 

Our lawyers are generally, I suppose, with Choate and Hallett, the 
shameless and pliant tools of the slave-power. But not all. There is 
Phillips, the Cicero of this day, the able jurist, the finished scholar, the 
radical reformer ; there is Seward, the profound and philosophic 
advocate ; there is Allen, the fearless, ethcient and beloved leader of 
the sound old heart of the Commonwealth ; there are Rantoul and 
Sewall and Loring, who are using finished powers of minds rarely 
skilled in law, with a deep and noble earnestness to rescue, if possible, 
the unfortunate captive now in the hands of the slave-catching police 
and watch-force of Boston. These and more like unto them, talented 
and powerful pleaders, are consecrated to freedom's cause. 

Our editors of religious and secular papers, are generally on the 
wrong side of this present vital issue, or feebly, inetficiently enlisted 
and engaged on the side of truth and right. But here, in this all im- 
portant post, we see some of the truest men the world ever knew, men 
filled with the blessed spirit of Jesus. There is Garrison, who has 
blown a blast on the trumpet of truth, which has at length aroused a 
nation's slumbering conscience ; there isBurritt, whose sparks from the 
anvil of truth and love have gone through the heart of the Common- 
wealth, kindling there such a fire, that the faithless servant of that 
District is consumed, and the slave power can find no refuge from its 
searching potency. The Lord grant that our editors may shake off 
party trammels and cast away selfish views, and be like these noble 
men, independent and earnest in carrying forward the reforms which 
truth demands, and which the suffering brotherhood needs. Then 
should daily and weekly messengers fly over our land to each home 
therein, bearing on their willing wings life and joy to all. 

The laborers of this nation, far too generally, are blind to their own 
interests, and elevate to posts of honor and emolument those who 
despise and depress honest toil. But among our farmers, our artizans, 
our mechanics, our sewers and knitters, and_ factory hands, there is a 
deepening, a spreading anti-slavery zeal. Of all classes in the com- 
munity, we most desire to see the laboring class informed upon this 
subject, and enlisted in this cause. For when they understand their 
duty, and enter upon its performance, the day of our redemption draws 
near. 

Too many of the women of this day oppose the noblest and most 
needed of all reforms, with the successful issue of which, is intimately 
joined her own emancipation from the injustice under which she i» 



11 

called to suffer. But here too we find some of the ablest and purest 
apostles of truth. There is Lucretia Mott, one of the most eloquent 
preachers of our day, and Abby Kelley Foster, whose influence is 
widely felt through this guilty nation, and many others, whom we might 
mention, did time admit, who are toiling devotedly and successfully in 
the anti-slavery reform. May God speed them on and raise up many 
more noble, talented women, like unto them, to preach the gospel to 
the poor, and to bring deliverance to the captives. 

Our poets are nearly all on the side of freedom. True poetry, 
indeed is divine, and ever opposed, as the Divinity itself, to oppression. 
All the noble men and women whom God has endowed with the poetic 
power, so long as they are true, must war against wrong. Whittier 
and Lowell, Bryant and Emerson, \Yho tune angelic lyres, and send 
forth heavenly harmonies, — are not only our greatest poets, but also 
leading men in the anti-slavery reform. 

Thus do we descry hope shining out in the dark night of our struggle, 
as we see a noble band of patriotic christian men and women, who are 
engaged in the grand effort to consummate the good work, so well 
begun by our Pilgrim and Revolutionary fathers. And it is well for 
us to turn from the dark picture, which the degeneracy of some and 
the apostacy of others presents to the bright view, so full of hope, 
which this other noble band holds out. As the sailor in a dangerous 
sea, beholding the scattered wrecks on either side, would be appalled 
by the difficulties which encompass him, and so unfitted for the effort 
necessary to carry him safely through the dangerous passage, did he 
not cast his eye on to the stately vessels securely moored in port, and 
from their success in the journey through the hazards of his way, educe 
a hopeful augury for his own arduous effort : So we must turn at times 
from these drifting wrecks of the fond hopes and high promise of other 
days, to those who have sailed securely by the rocks and whirlpools of- 
the slave-power, or we shall lose heart and go down into the deep 
waters of despair. 

I now invite your altenlion to the hypocrisy of this nation as seen in 
the professions and conduct of our leading raen. 

The history of the world cannot show a greater discrepancy between 
profession and practice, than is seen in our land at this time. Our 
noble Declaration announces principles which would at once free every 
slave, if these principles could be applied. Our Constitution contains 
provisions which concern the highest welfare of the people, and which 
can never be executed till slavery is abolished. Professing to be Re- 
publicans, our Statesmen are now leagued in unholy union to suppress 
freedom of speech, to put down, in the free states, the discussion of 
those rights which our Declaration affirms to be inalienable, and in de- 
fence of which our fathers staked fortune, life, and honor. Inffleen 
of the States it is more dangerous to speak the truth than it is in any 
other part of the heathen world. The New Orleans True American 
says : " We can assure the Bostonians, one and all who have embarked 
in the nefarious scheme of abolishing slavery at the South, that lashes 



12 

will hereafter be spared the backs of their emissaries. Let them send 
out their men to Louisiana, — they ivill never return to tell their suffer- 
ingSf but they shall expiate the crime of interjering in our domestic in- 
stitutions, by being burned at the stake. " 

Says the Augusta (Georgia) Chronicle : " The cry of the whole 
South should be death — instant death to the Abolitionist, wherever 
he is caught. " 

Says the Columbia (South Carolina) Telescope: "Let us declare, 
through the public journals of our country, thai the questio?i of slavery 
is not and shall not be open for discussion ; that the system is too deep- 
rooted among us, and must remain forever ; that the very moment 
any private individual attempts to lecture us upon its evils and immoral- 
ities, and the necessity of putting means in operation to secure our- 
selves from them, in the same moment his tongue shall be cut out 

AND CAST UPON THE DUNGHILL. " 

So speaks the slave-power. Its actions come up to the full atrocity 
of its denunciations. 

Hangman Foote, of Mississippi, a senator in Congress, deliberately 
and openly declared, in the Senate Chamber, that he and his neighbors 
would hang up by the neck, on some tall tree, a brother senator from 
New Hampshire, if he would only afford them the pleasant opportunity 
by coming among them, and giving utterance to his convictions of the evil 
and crime of slavery. There is no doubt it would be done with bonfires 
and public rejoicings, by the slave-holders of that State. Jolm P. 
Hale would be murdered in open day, if he should visit Mississippi , 
and talk there as he does at home. 

South Carolina takes the free citizens of Massachusetts from our 
vessels, when they arrive in her ports, and confines them in her pesti- 
lential jails, for no crime but the color of their skin ! Our Common- 
wealth sends one of her most venerable men to try the constitutionality 
of the law which authorizes these outrages. The slave-power fears 
the light of free discussion, and so Samuel Hoar is ignominiously 
driven from the South, and the will of a sister State, as well as the 
rights of Humanity, are trampled in the dust by the inexorable slave- 
power ! 

Barrett, a citizen of Ohio, passing through South Carolina, is arrested 
on the bare suspicion of being an abolitionist, and of being engaged in 
circulating a pamphlet through that State, in which is exposed the 
unjust representative system, fixed upon the State by the slave- power. 

" Within a few weeks past, — the accounts having but just now reached 
us, — an aged and most respectable individual of the name of Harris, 
a citizen of New Hampshire, has been tried by a mob in South 
Carolina, and tarred and feathered, because he happened to have in his 
trunk, a sermon which had been sent to him by one of his acquaint- 
ances, a clergyman at the North ; though he had never showed the 
sermon to a single individual, nor whispered a word of its contents." 
Another man, a Dr. Coles, belonging to Boston, who had been lecturing 
on the subject of Physiology, was, within a few days, seized and 



13 

carried before a magistrate, in the same State, his trunks rifled, the 
private letters sent to him by his wife and family pubHcly read, with 
the most indecent comments, and all without any shadow of reasonable 
suspicion against him. 

Tliesc tilings were done, not by the savages of the wilderness, nor ly 
the ignorant Pagans of the distant isles of the ocean, hut by our 
Southern countrymen, who boast of their chivalry and honor, who pro- 
fess to be Christians, and to love liberty and justice ! 

Within the past ^e\\ months the sanctity of law and the necessity of 
unconditional obedience to the enactments of our government have 
furnished a constant theme of discourse to our President in his procla- 
mations, to our Secretary of State in his countless letters to Union 
Committees, to our Governors in their annual messages, to our judges 
in their charges to juries, to our ambitious demagogues in their lectures, 
and to our politic, time-serving ministers, in their discourses. One 
would think, to hear these men talk, that they are really law-loving and 
law-abiding citizens. But it is easy to show that this is all hypocrisy 
of the most arrant kind. These very men who make the welkin ring 
with their Ephesus-like cry, " great is this Union, and sacred this 
fugitive slave bill," every mother's son of them, from the chief magis- 
trate down to the lowest of these Union men, is openly and knowingly 
violating laws of vital importance. 

The ministers who preach that we ought to obey, or ought not to 
disobey this infernal fugitive slave bill, because it has passed both 
houses of Congress, and received the sanction of the President, and 
thus become the constitutionally recognized law of the land, in so doing, 
cast off" their allegiance to God, and for some paltry present considera- 
tion, sell to his cruel foe, the Redeemer of this lost world. This is 
strong language, I am aware, but the truth is stronger. Daniel dis- 
obeyed the Persian law, was cast into the midst of the ravenous lions 
for his disobedience, and God delivered him. That law only required 
of him to refrain for thirty days from public prayer. This law requires 
you to seize, and render back to the hell of American slavery, the 
brother who seeks shelter and safety in your home. If the prophet 
Daniel noiv lived would he obey this infamous statute I The three 
Hebrew children refused to obey a law less atrocious than this, and 
God sustained them in doing it. The Apostles were law-breakers, and 
when called to account for their treason, this was their excuse — 
" Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more 
than unto God, judge ye." Peter and the other Apostles answered and 
said — " We ought to obey God rather than man." " And when they 
had called the Apostles and beaten them, they commanded that they 
should not speak in the name of Jesus, and let theni go. And they 
departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were 
counted worthy to suffer shame for his name. And daily in the temple 
and in every house, they ceased not to teach and preach Jesus Christ.'' 
Plainer cases could not be found of open disobedience to wicked law. 
And the history of the early Christians abounds w^ith such cases. Nov.- 

Q 



14 

remember these ministers know these things. They have the Bible in 
their hands, and they cannot plead ignorante to justify their course. 
I said they were doing this for some paltry consideration of present in- 
terest. Dr. Dewey, who affirmed his readiness to surrender child or 
mother if necessary to preserve this Union, has obtained his reward. 
He is appointed Chaplain in the Navy, and will stand a very fine chance 
to be chosen Chaplain of the Senate of this great Union. I distinctly 
impeach these men of treason against Christ. And mark you this pre- 
diction, the revelation of Eternity will sustain this fearful charge. 
Those ministers who take the Bible in their hands and pi-each the duty 
of obediejice to this bill of abominations are traitors before God and 
hypocrites before men. 

The capitalists who calls so loudly upon us to obey this law, and the 
politicians, who join with them in the cry, are themselves the violators 
of our Temperance and Usury laws. For the sake of Southern trade 
they go in for this wicked law, and for the sake of profit or appetite, 
they go in for a systematic violation of the just and necessary laws on 
Temperance and Usury. They seem to act on this principle, viz : if a 
law is just and its execution is necessary to secure the public good, 
then we will disobey it and set its enactment at defiance. But if our 
Government enacts injustice into law and requires us to disobey God, 
then we will obey this law ourselves, and denounce and brand and per- 
secute to the last extremity, the man who takes his stand on the old 
apostolic platform, and disobeys a wicked law that he may obey God. 

An honest industrious citizen of Boston was seized by the kidnapper, 
but was rescued from the wicked hands of the myrmidons of an atro- 
cious law, by a few of his friends. It was done suddenly, and without 
violence, to save a brother from a fate enough to appal the stoutest 
heart, from which there was no escape, except by this " summary pro- 
cess." Well who can withhold honor from the noble band which accom- 
plished the deliverance of this brother ? It was as worthy a deed as the 
attempted rescue of Lafayette from the dungeons at Olmutz ; it was as 
noble a deed as that which has consecrated Bunker Hill, Lexington, 
Concord, Yorktown, the holy spots of earth. Would to God that Long 
might have been rescued in the same icay from the merciless clutches 
oftheJJnion Committee of NewYork. How joyfully would we rescue Sims 
from the hands of his cruel captors and so demonstrate to the world 
the glorious fact that no slave can be found on Massachusetts soil, that 
in the noble State which led the way in the struggle of the Revolution, 
freedom and right are loved more than the Union or the Constitution. 
But this noble act calls forth a proclamation from the President, in which 
all concerned in the rescue are sternly rebuked, and the military power 
of the United States is pledged to insure the successful execution of 
this tyrannical law in Boston. Does any one imagine this comes of a 
reverence for the Constitution and an honest purpose to execute the re- 
quirements thereof? It is hardly possible to be so deceived. Just look 
at the well known facts. The President is bound by his oath to observe 
in all his official conduct the provisions of the Constitution, and to en- 



15 

force the same through the land. Doesany one suppose that Mr. Fillnnore 
was ignorant of the fact that this fugitive slave bill is utterly repugnant 
to the spirit and the letter of the Constitution ? He owns that he feared it 
struck down one of the old bulwarks of personal freedom, viz : the writ 
of habeas corpus and so he addressed Mr. Attorney General Critten- 
den to show that this was not done. And in answer Mr. C. states that 
this great right is not touched by the provisions of the bill. Well now 
I undertake to say that every person in the country, of common intelli- 
gence, on reading that bill, could but see the base falsehood of Mr. 
Crittenden's professional opinion. The President knew that this right 
was destroyed by that bill and we all knew it. And so now we see 
Judge Shaw refusing this writ of personal replevin in the case of a 
brother in Boston, seized as an alleged fugitive, but claiming to be free 
by the law of Georgia as well as by the law of Massachusetts. Oh, it 
is infinite baseness for the renegade Fillmore to profess to reverence the, 
Constitution while signing this bill, which he knew to be as unconstitu- 
tional as it is infernal. 

Again the provisions of the Constitution are violated in the oppressive 
regulations of the slave states, in numberless and aggravated instances. 
Our citizens charged with no crime, are imprisoned and sometimes sold 
into hopeless servitude. Our venerable men are driven away with con- 
tumely from the prosecution of duties assigned them by the state. 
Others are treated with a cruelty unparalleled in the atrocities of the 
heathen world. 1 ask no apology for giving you the following lengthy 
statement, in the words of the sufferer himself, an agent of the Baptist 
Church, sent to labor in Kentucky, to show to the people the evil and 
sin of slavery. Remember, lohile you listen to his story, that the Pres- 
ident issued a proclamatioyi, tohen Shadrach was peaceably rescued 
from the infamous men who had seized him: and then tell me, if you can, 
why no proclamation is directed to this outrage. 



tFrom tlie American Baptist, t 

THE LYNCHING IN KENTUCKY. 

" We pass over for the present, Nos. 7, 8 and 9 of Brother Mathews"' 
Letters from Kentucky, that our readers may have at the earliest 
moment, his account of the barbarous treatment inflicted upon him by 
the lynchers. He visited the village of Richmond, Madison county, 
with a view to lecture on the moral and religious condition of the slaves ; 
but failed, after applying to three or four different churches, of obtain- 
ing a house for that purpose. On Sunday evening, Feb. 16, he 
preached by invitation to the colored congregation ; after which he 
was assailed by a mob, and, with some personal indignities, but no 
serious injury, driven from the town. Proceeding to the residence of 
Cassius M. Clay, at Whitehall, he prepared for the Chronicle, a news- 
paper published at Richmond, a statement in relation to the doings of 



16 

the mob, with which he loft for Foxtown on the morning of the 18th, 
as stated in the beginning of the letter below. 

" Bryantsville, Feb. 20, 1851, 
" Dear Br. Walker : — My communication to the Chronicle, of 
Richmond, was placed in an envelope by Cassius M. Clay, together 
with a letter written by himself to the Editor. On arriving at Foxtown, 
I found that I was a minute too late for the stage. As it was only six 
miles to Richmond, and as I was anxious that the communication should 
appear in the next number, I concluded to walk to Richmond. Arrived 
there, I called at the Chronicle office, handed to the Editor pro ie??j, 
the communications, requested him to send his next number to the 
American Baptist, passed down the street, and that my stay might be 
as brief as possible, called into a store, and obtained a few apples as a 
substitute for a dinner. I now pursued my way to the Big Hill, thinking 
that the information I had gained previously, (that the public feeling 
had not sustained the mob,) was correct. Reflecting on these things, 
I concluded that my passing through the village would prove salutary 
rather than otherwise. 

" When nearly a mile from town, I was overtaken by four men 
riding on horses, — one, the bar- tender at Webster's hotel ; another, Mr. 
Turner, who was dressed in a drab coat ; another, a slim-built man, 
who wore a round-topped hat, and a long coat ; the other was of my 
own height, dressed respectably, and wore whiskers. 

" They enquired of me, ' Where now } ' I replied, that, having an 
appointment at Big Hill, I was going to fulfill it. They placed their 
hands within their vests, and said, ' If you make the least outcry or 
resistance, you shall die instantly. You must go with us ; we will 
put you in the road to Lancaster.' ' Now,' said they, ' did you not 
agree not to come back to Uich.mond ? ' I told them that I made no 
such agreement ; if they supposed so, they must entirely have misun- 
derstood me ; and that now I had simply passed through the village, on 
the way to my appointment. We passed one house, but knowing it 
was useless to attempt to run into it, I proceeded with them. We 
turned from the main road through a gate, crossed a field, entered a 
lane, and went down it some distance, turned to the right through 
another gate, and finally descended into a valley through which runs a 
very small creek, and where we were in sight of an out-house, which 
[ understood them to say belonged to Mr. Bronston. They then hitched 
their horses to the fence, and the bar-tender of Webster's Hotel, seizing 
my arms, brought them behind me, and bound them with a horse 
bridle. They arranged themselves in front of me, and enquired, ' Are 
you an abolitionist ?" 1 stated that I did not believe that the slaves 
ought to rise and resist their masters, but that I believed in eman- 
cipating them, and that I was laboring to bring the moral power of the 
church to bear against slavery. They took a handkerchief, folded it, 
and bandaged my eyes. Supposing I was about to die, 1 began to pray 
aloud : but this drew from them oaths and threats. They then seemed 



17 

to be waiting for some one to bring sonrie tar and feathers ; but the 
person they expected not coming, they consulted what should be done 
with me. One thought he could obtain some tar and feathers by being 
absent a little while. They asked me if I had not said, in Riclimond, 
that it was right for slaves to run away, and that I would help them. 
I told them 1 had not. 'Did you not,' said they, 'tell the Methodist 
minister that slaves could not get to heaven if they did not run away 
from slavery ?' I told them I did not. After further questions, they 
consulted whether I should be whipped, tarred and feathered, ducked 
or hanged. At last they decided to duck me. We had to go some 
distance to a pond. The bandage from my eyes was taken off", but my 
hands were still bound. Having to go over some fences, it atforded 
them sport to see me go over them bound. In some cases they would 
take off a rail or two, and in one case assisted me. Arrived at the 
pond, Mr. Turner, the owner of the farm, came up. 'Here,' said they, 
'we found this man stealing your hogs.' He seemed to understand 
their object. I now asked that I might be allowed to take off my two 
coats, and place my bible, watch and pocket-book in the pocket of my 
overcoat. To this they consented. They then asked me if I could 
swim. I told them I could, but did not know that I could with my 
clothes on. One of them said a stone ought to be tied to me, that I 
might sink to the bottom. They brought me to the edge of the water. 
The bar-tender on my left, and Mr. Turner on my right, seized and 
flung me as far as they could into the pond. Before rising to the sur- 
face, I swallowed considerable water, and nearly lost my breath. When 
I approached the shore, as near as where the water was waist high, I 
paused to gain breath. They commanded me to come to the shore 
instantly. 1 implored them to allow me to gain my breath. But they 
reiterated,^ Come out instantly." 

"As soon as I reached the shore, they took me and threw me in again 
head first. On my regaining the shore they threw me in the third time. 
On coming out they required me to promise never to come to Rich- 
mond, or into Madison county any more. I declined promising, and 
they threw me in the fourth time. I then made the promise. They 
next required me to leave Kentucky and never return to it. I refused, 
and they threw me in the fifth time. On coming to the shore, they 
again required me to make the promise ; I refused, and they deter- 
mined to whip me. They led me to a tree, and tied up my arms as 
they tie up slaves when they flog them. They tied a bandage round 
my eyes, so tight as to pain them exceedingly. But finally they con- 
cluded to duck me again. They led me along, when, putting up my 
hand, I pulled off the bandage, and found Turner leading me to the 
pond. He blamed me for pulling off the bandage. They threw me 
(as before) into the pond the sixth time. 1 still refused to promise. 
Another set of hands took hold, and they threw me in the seventh time. 
I refused to promise. They threw me in the eighth time. I refused 
\o promise. They threw me in the ninth time. I refused to promise. 



18 

They threw me in the tenth time, and I refused to promise. They now 
resolved to whip me. As I approached the shore, 1 found all the powers 
of nature giving way. I thought of my intention, in coming into Ken- 
tucky, to leave if they would not hear me lecture. I thought also of the 
vast amount of work yet to be done in the free States ; and that, if I 
lived, I could tell the free States of this treatment ; and I believed that it 
would do good to make it known. So, halting in the' pond, what of 
life there was in me promised to leave Kentucky, and never return. 
The bar-tender said, ' Do you swear, so help you God, you will leave 
Kentucky, and never return ?' I replied, I solemnly affirm I will leave 
and not return. They then assured me that I should have men to watch 
me to the borders of the State ; that if 1 attempted to go to Cassius M. 
Clay's or on the Richmond pike to Lexington, I should be killed, — 
spies would be out to watch ; that I must go by Lancaster, and there 
take the stage for Lexington, and if I ever returned to the State, they 
would hang me wherever they could find me, or even if I told how 1 
had been treated before leaving the State ; — that 1 must take the Lan- 
caster stage the next morning for Lexington. I can add no more now." 



Madison, Ind. Feb. 22, 185L 
" I resume the subject of my treatment by the lynchers. After 
exacting the promise to leave the State by way of Lancaster, they told 
me I might change my dress. 1 made an effort to unlock my carpet-bag, 
but shook so much with the cold that 1 was unable to do so, and one of 
the lynchers opened it for me. They seemed to regard my articles in 
the carpet-bag as quite as much under their control as their own prop- 
erty, stating that they wanted my anti-slavery tracts, papers, &c. I 
put on dry socks, drawers, flannel and cotton shirt. During this time, 
it being in the open air, and the 18th of February, I was very cold, and 
felt cramping pains in my legs. Having no change of pantaloons, I 
had to put on the wet ones which I had just taken off. My vest I placed 
in a handkerchief together with the remainder of my wet clothes. They 
now required the anti-slavery books. I handed out a bundle of 'Politics 
and the Pulpit,' 'Wesley's Thoughts on Slavery,' 'Lewis Tappan on 
the Unconstitutionality of the Fugitive Slave Bill,' and the 'Liberty 
Minstrel.' One of them opened the latter, and began to read, 

' Gone, gone, sold and gone, 

To the rice-swamps, dank and lone.' 

As I thought that stealing a few books could add but little to the black- 
ness of their guilt, I told them they niight have the books — I would 
give them to them. They thought the Liberty Minstrel, being nicely 
bound, ought to be paid for. 1 told them I wanted nothing for it, — 
they might keep it. Finding that they determined to pay for it, and 
fearing it might add to my sufferings if I made the issue that I would 
not receive the money, I received fifty cents for it, simply as the 
safest course for myself under the circumstances. One of them called 
it a fair trade. Ah, thought I, if it facilitates my escape from your 



19 

hands. They enquired if it was a cold day when I was baptized, and 
whether I ever had such a baptizing before, — and many other things in 
ridicule of my religious faith. 

" They enquired what was thought by different persons of the treat- 
ment I received on Sunday night. 'Now,' said they, 'had you come to 
Richmond, and pursued the same course as other ministers, you would 
have been treated with the greatest kindness and hospitality.' I told 
them that the manner in which I had been treated that day would add 
no sorrow to my dying hour. I had not expressed my views in Rich- 
mond, in regard to the right of slaves to run away. 1 had, however, 
last year, in the State of New York, reported a speech made by Bro. 
Glen, in which he showed that as persons could serve God better in 
freedom than in slavery, every slave was morally bound to run away. 
I had stated that the argument was conclusive. This was published in 
the American Baptist, and had been seen by the Richmond Methodist 
minister. Hence they charged me with saying to him, that slaves 
could not get to heaven, unless they should run away. I found that 
they had received a communication from Mayslick, saying I had been 
threatened with lynching there. The bar-tender now took out a pair 
of scissors and cut off a lock of my hair to send to the editor of the 
American Baptist. We now repaired to the Lancaster road, and the 
lynchers, on horseback, rode to Richmond, while I, on foot, carrying 
my wet clothes and car-pet bag, started for Lancaster, — a dirt road of 
twenty-two miles, muddy, and crossed by creeks. I now had fellow- 
ship with the slaves in their sufferings more closely than ever before. 
The lynchers had forbidden me to have a night's rest before reaching 
Lancaster. 1 walked about five miles over a muddy road. I was now 
weary, faint, hungry, and part of my clothes wet. Besides, the road 
forked, and it was too dark for me to read the direction. To lie down 
in the fields would probably ruin my health. To ask protection of slave- 
holders was, from my situation, to become the object of suspicion. But 
it was the best alternative. 1 approached a house, and asked if I could 
obtain a supper. This was cordially granted. I then stated my case 
and treatment. The slaveholder, Mr. M., said, 'If I thought you had 
come to steal one of my niggers, I should immediately shoot you.' 

" He then dwelt on the benefits of Colonization, while I dried my pan- 
taloons at his fire. 1 told him my future health would depend on my hav- 
ing the privilege of staying all night, and inquired if I might do so. 
He consented to it. That kind act of his, in all probability, prevented 
me from taking a cold from which I could never have recovered. A 
fire was lighted in my bed-room, and I sat up till midnight with his son, 
drying my clothes. The latter sympathized with me in my trial. I 
lay down, but that night slept not a minute. The next morning I 
started at five o'clock. I was as unsuccessful as on the previous eve- 
ning in hiring a horse. I walked four miles, crossing a creek by moon- 
light, on a dam which was somewhat dangerous. I breakfasted at a tavern, 
walked two miles farther, and for ^L50, hired a horse and boy to go 
to Lancaster. We arrived safely. I had now travelled twenty-two 



20 

miles, and was ten miles farther from Lexington than when at Rich- 
mond. I was still in danger, for I had told of the treatment I had 
received before leaving the State. 1 now hired another horse, and the 
tavern-keeper sent his slave on another, to take the horse back from 
Bryantsville. I began now to feel somewhat secure. But the mail- 
carriers came, inquired me out, and made it known that 1 had been 
lynched, I was again the object of suspicion. The tavern-keeper at 
Bryantsville was a Baptist slaveholder, and I told him I thought 1 would 
go on toward Lexington. His son persuaded me to stay. The next 
morning the stage came. The passengers were all duly informed. 
The inside was filled. I took my seat on the outside, the rain falling 
in torrents. The company cracked their jokes upon me, singing 
hymns, swore, drank, and denounced the Emancipationist. Arrived 
at Lexington, I found that some of my Richmond enemies were look- 
ing out for me. I walked down to the railroad office, dried my clothes, 
and that evening reached Frankfort. 1 found I was still watched. 
The next day I came on to Madison, and felt how good it was to land 
in a free State. Last Sunday, February 23, preached three times to 
the colored Baptist church in this place. 

Yours for the Slave, 

EDWARD MATHEWS." 

The American Baptist, in commenting at some length on this 
revolting and cruel infliction of Lynch law, justly says : 

"Br. Mathews' case is emphatically one of deliberate 'persecution 
for righteousness sake,' — better entitled to be so called than anything 
that has occurred, so far as we now recollect, in the experience of 
modern missionaries in heathen lands. Judson was imprisoned at Ava, 
not as a Christian, but as a foreigner, and a supposed enemy, — ^just as 
an English or American Infidel would have been imprisoned in like 
circumstances. Two missionaries were killed and eaten by cannibals 
some years since, not as Christians, but as strangers, just as a Mahometan 
stranger would have been killed and eaten, had he landed on the same 
inhospitable coast. So of other similar cases. But Mathews was per- 
secuted for his fidelity as a minister of Christ. By the testimony of his 
persecutors themselves, ' had he pursued the same course that other 
ministers pursue' in Kentucky, — had he, in other words, proved himself 
a miserable, truckling time-server, closing his eyes to the gigantic and 
overshadowing abomination of slavery, and trimming his sails to the 
popular breeze, instead of faithfully discharging his trust as a messen- 
ger of Him who was annointed 'to preach deliverance to the captives, 
and the opening of the prison to them that are bound,' — he 'would hilve 
been treated with the greatest kindness and hospitality.' But, like his 
Master, he pursued a course which was felt by the oppressors around 
him as a rebuke; and hence, like his Master, he was violently seized, 
bound, and led away, stripped, blindfolded, insulted, and reviled. He 
was not scourged, indeed ; but another species of torture scarcely less 
severe was inflicted. Ten times in succession was he subjected to the 



21 

x>rdeal by water, struggling forth from the strangling element only to 
be brutally hurled back into the wintry flood. And Anally, as the only 
alternative of a violent death, he was compelled to submit to an extra- 
judicial sentence of banishment from the Stale. 

" We invite attention to this instance of the persecution in our own 
country of a Christian missionary, for no other cause than that, as a 
Christian missionary, he was found faithful, — as one of startling signifi- 
cancy. It would seem that the preaching, without reserve, of the true 
Christian doctrine, is actually attended with more peril in the Southern 
States of this confederacy, than in Constantinople, Ava, or Canton." 

Against such high-handed atrocities as this case presents, by which 
the Constitution lohich the President has sioorn to supjwrt, is openly 
violated and annulled in half the States of this Union, xoe hear not a 
word from our chief Magistrate, icho sends out on the wings of the 
lightning a j)Toclamation of terrors against the peaceable rescuers of a 
brother from the open jaws of the slave power. I impeach our Presi- 
dent and his chief adviser, and charge upon them the crime of treason and 
hypocrisy. They are traitors before God and hypocrites before the 
world. 

In considering the criminality of this Nation, ice must take note of 
the wrongs inflicted on the slave. 

I shall have time to give this topic only the briefest discussion. 
Look at the sad, the heart-rending fact : there are more than three mil- 
lions o^ our countrymen and countrywomen, with their children, to-day 
held in slavery — the most cruel and hopeless, the most debasing and 
accursed tyranny this world ever saw. There are more than half a 
million of our fellow beings in this land crushed under the mountain 
weight of American prejudice and pride against color. A larger num- 
ber the victims of a horrible oppression, that ends only in the narrow 
house of the dead, whore the weary are at rest and the wicked cease 
from troubling, than the whole American people sixty years ago ! 
Jefferson, who knew by observation some of the milder horrors of 
slavery, declared that they were insufferable. So atrocious did he regard 
the system of slavery, that he affirmed, in a supposed rising of the 
slaves for liberty, that every attribute of the Almighty Father must 
take sides with the slave and against his oppressor. This is important 
testimony. But feebly however does it express the awful crime of the 
slaveholder and his abettor. There is a fact, which declares more for- 
cibly than any words we can use, the depth of this sin, i. e. the efforts 
which the slave makes and the hazard which he incurs to escape from 
his bondage. By his irrepressible longings for liberty, and by his in- 
appeasable hatred of slavery, is he urged on to these great efforts and 
perils. The privations of a long, lonely and toilsome journey, through 
an unknown land teeming with a hostile population, cannot deter him 
from the effort. Skulking in swamps and woods by day, fixing his eye 
at night on the star of liberty, he patiently pushes his way on to the land 
of the free, where he may regain his manhood, and where the slave- 
hunter can no more molest his victim. He makes this great effort with 



22 

a full knowledge of the terrible consequences which will result there* 
from if he is recaptured. Thousands succeed, but thousands more are 
retaken and sold to the extreme South, and life with them soon flees 
away under the grinding rigor of their fate. Now the slave consents 
to be fastened up in a coffin-like box, to incur the tremendous hazard 
of such a mode of transportation to a free land, where he can be a man. 
Again, he hides in the dark hold of a ship, and spends the weary days 
of his voyage thus shut out from the light and joy of earth, nerved to 
endure the horrors of such a passage by the hope of recovering his 
liberty and his manhood when he touches a free port. Many a slave 
has thus escaped from his bondage, and some are this day seeking a 
free home, amid perils which we cannot understand. Oh, how power- 
ful, how melting the appeal which these heroic efforts and fearful dar- 
ings of the fugitive slave bring home to our hearts for sympathy and 
aid, and for that faithful and oft-repeated testimony of our indignation 
against the oppressor, which the Almighty and good Father commands 
us to feel and express, in the duty enjoined upon us to do to these vic- 
tims of cruelty, as we in their circumstances would ask to be treated ! 

The slave is at the mercy of wicked men : for surely none but a 
wicked man would reduce or hold a brother in bondage. The husband 
cannot protect his wife ; he has no security that she will be left to bless 
his humble home a single day. He may be snatched away from her 
side and from his poor cabin home, or she may be torn from his arms, 
and they who love with fondest affection are parted by cruel rapacity, 
to meet no more in life. Could you hold your sacred rights of love in 
your husband or wife by such a tenure } At the mercy of another } 
Without hope of release the poor slave endures this inconceivable 
wrong., this unutterable icoe. It would be no worse for you or for me, no 
greater cr'me to reduce you or me to that miserable state, than it is to 
Reduce our black brother to bondage. I will give you now a word of 
the tesiiniony of a fugitive slave, respecting this suffering from the dis»> 
ruption of family ties. They who suffer these tcro7igs can better de^ 
scribe them than ?«e who know not by experience their woe. Take first 
an extract from the thrilling story of Henry Box Brown, 

^' Henry was a slave in Virginia. He had a wife and three children 
for whom he was paying one hundred and twenty dollars a year. One 
morning he went to work as usual, but on returning at noon, found 
that his wife and children had been seized and sold upon the auction- 
block to the slave-traders, and were to be transported out of the State 
the next day in a slave-gang, which had just been filled by the purchase 
of his wife and children. Henry says : ' The next day I stationed 
myself by the side of the road, over which the slaves, three hundred 
and fifty-three, were to pass. There was a large company of us 
waiting to take a last farewell of the dear ones of our homes. A moan 
of sorrow could be heard on all sides as we waited for the sad pro- 
cession. Soon five wagons came along, loaded with the children too 
small to walk. My little girl saw me, and pointing to me with her 
hand out of the wagon, cried out, ' There's my father ; I knew he 



23 

would come to say good-bye.' I was choked with sorrow, and could 
not reply a word. When the slave-gang came up, I got hold of the 
hand of my wife, and walked weeping by her side for several miles. 
We could not talk ; our sorrow was too great ; and we parted without 
speaking the word, farewell.' 

" Henry remarked, with the deepest pathos, that after his wife and 
children were stolen, his heart was broken. He had learned to sing, 
to lighten the tedium of his labor, and for the gratification of his fellow- 
captives, but now he could not sing. His thoughts were far away in 
the rice-swamps of Carolina. His wife was not and his children were 
not, and he refused to be comforted. When the master, noticing his 
despondency, told him he could get another wife (Southern morality). 
Brown shook his head, — the wife of his affections and the children of 
his love, or none at all." 

Take another extract from the story of Rev. Thomas H. Jones, a 
fugitive slave, who has been preaching to the Wesleyan Church in 
Salem, for the last year. See how he describes his feelings when the 
wife of his bosom and the mother of his children was taken from him 
by her cruel mistress : 

" About this time I began to feel very lonely. I wanted a friend to 
whom I could tell my story of sorrows, of unsatisfied longing, of new 
and fondly cherished plans. I wanted a companion whom I could love 
with all my warm affections, who should love me in return with a true 
and fervent heart, of whom I might think when toiling for a selfish, 
unfeeling master, who should dwell fondly on my memory when we 
were separated during the severe labors of the day, and with whom I 
might enjoy the blessed happiness of social endearments after the work 
of each day was over. My heart yearned to have a home, if it was only 
the wretched home of the unprotected slave, to have a wife to love me and 
to love. It seems to me that no one can have such fondness of love, 
and such intensity of desire for home and home affections, as the poor 
slave. Despised and trampled on by cruel, unfeeling men, the bond- 
man must die in the prime of his wretched life, if he finds no refuge in 
a dear home, where love and sympathy shall meet him from hearts 
made sacred to him by his own irrepressible affection and tenderness 
for them. And so I sought to love and to win a true heart in return. 
I did this, too, with a full knowledge of the desperate agony that the 
slave husband and father is exposed to. Had I not seen this in the 
anguish of my own parents } Yea, I saw it in every public auction, 
where men and women and children were brought upon the block, ex- 
amined, and bought. I saw it on such occasions, in the hopeless agony 
depicted in the countenance of the husband and wife, there separated 
to meet no more in this cruel world ; and in the screams of wild 
despair and useless entreaty which the mother, then deprived of her 
darling child, sent forth. I heard the doom which stares every slave 
parent in the face each waking and sleeping hour of an unhappy life. 
And yet I sought to become a husband and a father, because I felt that I 
could live no longer unloved and unloving. 



24 

I was married to Lucilla Smith, the slave of Mrs. Moore. We called 
it and we considered it a true marriage^ although we knew well that 
marriage was not permitted to the slaves, as a sacred right of the 
loving heart. Lucilla was seventeen years old when we were married. 
I loved her with all my heart, and she gave me a return for my affec- 
tion, with which I was contented. Oh, God of Love, thou knowest 
what happy hours we have passed in each other's society in our poor 
cabin. When we knelt in prayer, we never forgot to ask God to save 
us from the misery of cruel separation, while life and love were our 
portion. Oh, how we have talked of this dreaded fate, and wept in 
mingling sorrow, as we thought of our desolation, if we should be 
parted and doomed to live on weary years away from each other's 
dear presence. We had three dear little babes. Our fondness for our 
precious children increased the feeling of love for each other, which 
filled our hearts. They were bright, precious things, those little babes ; 
at least, so they seemed to us. Lucilla and I were never tired of 
planning to improve their condition, as far as might be done for slaves. 
We prayed with new fervency to our Father in heaven, to protect our 
precious babes. Lucilla was] very proud of me, because I could read 
and write, and she often spoke of my teaching our dear little ones, and 
then she would say with tears, " Who knows, Thomas, but they may 
yet he free and happy 7 " Lucilla was a valuable slave to her mistress. 
She was a seamstress, and very expert at her needle. ] had a constant 
dread that Mrs. Moore, her mistress, would be in want of money, and 
sell my dear wife. We constantly dreaded a final separation. Our 
affection for each other was very strong, and this made us always ap- 
prehensive of a cruel parting. These fears were well-founded, as our 
sorrowing hearts too soon learned. A few years of very pure and 
constant happiness, for slaves, passed away, and we were parted to 
meet but once again till we meet in Eternity. Mrs. Moore left Wil- 
mington, and moved to Newburn. She carried with her my beloved 
Lucilla, and my three children, Anne, four years old ; Lizzie, two 
and a half years : and our sweet little babe, Charlie. She remained 
there eighteen months. And Oh, how lonely and dreary and despond- 
ing were those months to my crushed heart ! My dear wife and my 
precious children were seventj^-four miles distant from me, carried 
away in utter scorn of my beseeching words. I was tempted to put 
an end to my wretched life. I 'thought of my dear family by day and 
by night. A deep despair was in my heart, such as no one is called 
to bear in such cruel, crushing power, as the poor slave, severed for- 
ever from the objects of his love, by the rapacity of his brother. 

But that dark time of despair passed away, and I saw once more my 
wife and children. Mrs. Moore left Newburn for Tuscaloosa, Ala., and, 
passing through Wilmington, on her journey, she spent one night in her 
old home. That night I passed with my wife and children. Lucilla 
had pined away under the agony of our separation, even more than I 
had done. That night she wept on my bosom, and we mingled bitter tears 
together. Our dear children were baptized in the tears of agony that 



' 25 

were wrung from our breaking hearts. The just God remember that 
night in the last award that we and our oppressors are to receive. 

The next morning Mrs. Moore embarked on board the packet. I 
followed my wife and children to the boat, and parted from them with- 
out a word of farewell. Our sobs and tears were our only adieu. 
Our hearts were too full of anguish for any other expression of our 
hopeless woe. I have never seen that dear family since, nor have I 
heard from them since I parted from them there. God only knows the 
bitterness of my agony, experienced in the separation of my wife and 
children from me. The memory of that great woe will find a fresh 
impression on my heart while that heart shall beat. How will the 
gifted and the great meet the charge against them at the great day, as 
the Judge shall say to them, in stern displeasure, ' I was sick, destitute, 
imprisoned, helpless, and ye ministered not unto me, for when ye 
slighted and despised these wretched, pleading slaves, ye did these acts 
of scorn against me. Depart, ye workers of iniquity.' " 

The slave father and the slave inother love their dear children as 
fondly as ive love the precious ones ivhom God has committed to our 
care. There is no joy so great to your heart as that which res^dts from 
the happiness and prosperity of your children. 

God has invested this relation with the most sacred sanctions, prom- 
ising to bless, in all cases, the faithful training of the child, and con- 
necting with obedience, reverence and love to the parent, the future 
welfare of the child. God gives the control of the child to the parents 
as a most precious and sacred trust. But the slaveholder robs the pa- 
rent of this right, and takes the control of the slave's children into his 
own hands, dooms them to ignorance, degrades them, and, so far as he 
can, obliterates from their soul the image of their Heavenly Father, 
and reduces them to a level with the brute. 

A slave mother in Kentucky, was to be taken to the distant South 
the next day, separated from her beloved child, with no hope of ever 
meeting the dear one of her love again. She was in jail awaiting her 
removal. She asked the jailor to allow her to have her child with her 
this last night of her sad sojourn in the land of her birth. Her request 
was granted, and in the morning she and her child were found dead, 
destroyed hy the frantic mother, as the only possible release from the 
horrors impending in their separation. Could you endure the intoler- 
able woe of seeing your dear children thus degraded and ruined by the 
hand of remorseless tyranny .'' Will you bear in mind that God com- 
mands you to do unto and for those poor, suffering slaves, husbands 
and wives, parents and children, as you would wish to be holpen if in 
■their wretched condition } This duty your Judge enjoins, and you 
neglect it at the peril of your soul. 

If I had time I should be glad to dwell on other aspects of the great 
wrongs endured by the slave — the enforced ignorance and immorality 
which is made to rest like the pall of death on these millions of our 
suffering brothers — the cruel extinction, by the relentless slave code, of 
the honorable and earnest desires of the heart for betterment in the 

3 



26 

condition of life — the moral apathy which is purposely cast upon the 
feelings of the slave — these and other topics, pregnant with great 
truths, I would dwell upon, but I have not time now. You have seen 
enough, however, to lead you to cry out in the language of John 
Wesley — " American slavery is the sum of all villainies ! ! ! " You 
have seen enough to show you that the wrongs endured by the slave in 
these United States, are unequalled in atrocity and unparalleled in the 
extent and infamy of their criminality in any other land of this earth. 
I will dismiss this topic by quoting the language of one who lives in 
the midst of slavery, the truth of whose testimony no one will be dis- 
posed to call in question. 

The Rev. R. J. Breckenridge, of Kentucky, thus speaks on this 
point, of the family and home relations of the slave. He characterized 
it as " the most atrocious of all human institutions, " as a system 
" which denies to a wh6le class of human beings the sacredness of 
marriage and of home, compelling them to live in a state of concubin- 
age, for, in the eye of the law, no colored slave-man is the husband of 
any wife in particular, nor any slave-woman the wife of any husband 
in particular, and no slave-child is the child of any parent in par- 
ticular." 

But we must not pass by the Fugitive Slave Bill in the exposition of 
the Nation's sin. 

It would be difficult to find, in the legislation of the world, a case of 
such deliberate and damning villany as the consummation of this mea- 
sure in the thirty-first Congress of these States presents. The manner 
in which it was driven through at the very last moment of the session 
is thus stated by Mr. Mann, in his recent admirable speech on this bill. 
He says : — 

" When several of these measures were passed, and particularly 
when one of the most obnoxious and criminal of them all was passed, — 
I mean the Fugitive Slave Bill, — this House was not a deliberative body. 
Deliberation was silenced. Those who knew they could not meet our 
arguments, choked their utterance. The previous question, which was 
originally devised to curb the abuse of too much debate, was perverted 
to stop all debate. The floor was assigned to a known friend of the 
bill, who after a brief speech in palliation of its enormities, moved 
the previous question ; and thus we were silenced by force, instead of 
being overcome by argument. For, sir, I aver, without fear of contra- 
diction, that|the bill never could have become a law, had its opponents 
been allowed to debate it, or to propose amendments to it. For the 
honor of the country, therefore, at the present time, and for the cause 
of truth hereafter, it is important that the hideous features of that bill, 
which were then masked, should be now unmasked. The arguments 
which I then desired and designed to offer against it, I mean to offer 
now. Those arguments have lost nothing of their weight by this 
enforced delay, and I have lost nothing of my right to present them." 

I have never been disposed to stop to ask the question whether this 
pretended law be constitutional or unconstitutional, as a question to be 



27 

settled before I should decide whether duty bade me to obey or disobey 
the infamous statute. It is clearly proved, however, by argument and 
logic which cannot be answered, and which no man will ever attempt 
to answer, that this law is entirely unconstitutional. It subverts the 
Constitution, and severs the bond of Union, just as much as it contra- 
venes the eternal constitution of Right which God has enacted. But I 
am prepared to say, that I will disobey that law, by aiding the fugitive 
slave, and by active obstructions in the way of the abominable kidnapper, 
although the Constitution of my country should sanction the law in all 
the length and breadth of its itmneasurable i7ifamy. I am devoutly thank- 
ful that this law is as unconstitutional as it is bad, but we must remem- 
ber this rule, which is binding upon men always and everywhere, a 
rule higher in authority and more ancient than any human law or 
Constitution, obey God rather than man,- — disobedience to a wicked law 
is loyalty to God, — deliberate obedience to a loicked statute like this 
bill of utter abominations is blank Atheism, and those loho counsel it 
are sheer Atheists. And in this matter the old doctrine of the Protest- 
ants is true, each one must examine and decide according to the con- 
victions of his own conscience. As each one will go to the judgment 
alone, and answer for himself and for no other, according to that which 
he hath done, so must each one, by his oion private individual con- 
science, decide for his own sold, and thus forever bear the result of 
that decision, what duty demands of him. 

The process which is instituted by this act for the rendition of the 
fugitive to bondage as you all know, is to be a " summary process.'''' 
Provision is made for the swift and sure accomplishment oj injustice. 
Now look at one example of this summary injustice : — A colored woman 
and her daughter, claimed as fugitive slaves, while the husband and 
father was absent from his home, were seized near Philadelphia and 
brought before Judge Kane for trial under the summary provision of this 
law. David Paul Brown, Esq., the generous and steadfast friend of the 
colored people, volunteered to act as her counsel. He asked delay for 
a few days that he might procure important testimony from a distance, 
which would show that this woman was free. But the trial must be 
summary, and the petition for time to prove her right to freedom was 
cruelly denied the poor woman. A physician then came forward and 
testified under oath that the unhappy prisoner was on the eve of her con- 
finement, and could not with safety be removed to the distant place 
where her professed owner lived. This was urged upon the judge as a 
reason for a postponement of the trial, but in vain. A final appeal was 
then made for a short delay, that, at least, the freedom of the child 
might be secured by its birth on the free soil of Pennsylvania. But the 
Judge was inexorable, the summary proceedings of the court were not 
to be stayed one hour, not even to give freedom to an immortal being 
just entering the world. The despairing mother was hurried to the 
land of chains, that her child, thus unborn, might be doomed to the life 
of a slave. It is difficult to speak of such things — the infernal law, and 
its legitimate results — with words that shall answer the burning indig- 



28 

nation of every true heart. We have in this late the abomination of 
utter injustice and icrong, unlighied by a spark of goodness or truth. 

The trembHng fugitives have sent out an appeal to the clergy of this 
State, which is so expressive and true, that I offer no apology for giving 
it in this place, and then I close this topic by an extract from the noble 
speech of Mr. Mann, on this law. 



ADDRESS TO THE CLERGY OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

" We, the trembling, proscribed and hunted fugitives from chattel 
slavery, now scattered through the various towns and villages of Massa- 
chusetts, and momentarily liable to be seized by the strong arm of gov- 
ernment, and hurried back to stripes, tortures and a bondage, one hour 
of which is fraught with more misery than ages of that which your 
fathers rose in rebellion to oppose — most humbly, importunately, and by 
the mercies of Christ, implore you to lift up your voices, like a trumpet, 
against the Fugitive Slave Bill recently adopted by Congress, and de- 
signed for our sure and immediate re-enslavement. 

You claim, in an especial sense, to be witnesses for God — the am- 
bassadors of Him who came to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim 
liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are 
bound. As you would be clear of the blood of all men, it is for you to 
give to the down-trodden and the oppressed your deepest sympathies, 
and to hold up to reprobation those who frame mischief by a law. It is 
for you to declare the supremacy of the eternal law of God over all 
human enactments, whether men will hear or forbear. 

After years of unrequited labor; of enforced degradation ; of incon- 
ceivable misery — we have succeeded in making our escape from the 
southern house of bondage, and are now attempting to lead quiet and 
peaceable lives in this Commonwealth, and by expanding our faculties, 
and cultivating our moral nature, to glorify God in our bodies and spirits, 
which are his. By the recent law of Congress it is made a highly 
criminal act to shelter us from the slave-hunter, or to refuse to partici- 
pate in our capture, at the command of the appointed commissioners. 

Now, therefore, by the solemn injunction of a Christian apostle, 
Remember them that are in bonds as bound with them, we implore you, 
from your pulpits to denounce that iniquitous law ! 

By the command of Christ, Whatsoever ye would that men should do 
to you do ye even so to them, denounce the law ! 

" By all the horrors compressed into that system of slavery, which 
Wesley has justly styled the sum of all villanies, denounce the law ! 

By the cherished memories of Pilgrim fathers and Revolutionary 
sires, denounce the law ! 

By your warm approval of your country's Declaration of Indepen- 
dence, denounce the law ! 

By your belief in the scriptural affirmation, that by one God we are 



29 

all created, and that he hath made of one blood all nations of men, to 
dwell on all the face of the earth, denounce the law ! 

By all the woes and warnings pronounced by the prophets against 
those who refuse to hide the outcast, and bewray him that wandereth 
— who decree unrighteous decrees, and write grievousness which they 
have prescribed, to turn aside the needy from judgment — denounce 
the law ! 

Thus will you exalt the Christian religion ; oppose the mightiest 
obstacle that stands in the way of human redemption ; exert such a 
moral influence as shall break the rod of the oppressor ; secure for 
yourselves the blessings of those who are ready to perish ; and hear 
the thrilling declaration in the great day of judgment. Inasmuch as ye 
did it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye did it unto me." 

,JVIr. Mann says : " In the name of my constituents, and by the 
memory of that ' old man eloquent,' in whose place it is my fortune 
to stand, I demand its repeal. I demand it, — 

Because it is a law which wars against the fundamental principles of 
human liberty. 

Because it is a law which conflicts with the Constitution of the 
country, and with all the judicial interpretations of that Constitution, 
wherever they have been applied to the white race. 

Because it is a law which introduces a fatal principle into the code 
of evidence, and into judicial practice, — a principle before which no 
man's liberties and no man's rights of any kind can stand. 

Because it is a law which is abhorent to the moral and religious 
sentiments of a vast majority of the community that is called upon to 
enforce it. 

Because the life and character of so many of its apologists and sup- 
porters are themselves potent arguments against it. 

Because it is a law which, if executed in the free States, divests them 
of the character of free States, and makes them voluntary participators 
in the guilt of slave-holding. 

Because it is a law which disgraces our country in the eyes of the 
whole civilized world, and gives plausible occasion to the votaries of 
despotic power to decry republican institutions. 

Because it is a law which forbids us to do unto others as we would 
have them do to us, and which makes it a crime to feed the hungry, to 
clothe the naked, and to visit and succor the sick and the imprisoned. 

Because it is a law which renders the precepts of the Gospel and 
the teachings of Jesus Christ seditious ; and, were the Saviour and his 
band of disciples now upon earth, there is but one of them who would 
escape its penalties by pretending " to conquer his prejudices." And, 
finally. 

Because the advocates and defenders of this law have been com- 
pelled to place its defence upon the express ground that the com- 
mandments of men are of higher authority than the ordinances of 
God." 

And now I ask in conclusion, what is the Christian's duty ? 

No one who has followed me through this discourse with attention 



30 

and candor, can deny that the Christian has a most important duly now 
on his hands in the removal of American Slavery. Do you not see in 
the condition of this nation ihe pressiitg nature of this duty ? Do you 
not hear the voice of the Almighty Father, in the words spoken in olden 
times to the Prophet of God, noiv calling upon every minister of the truth, 
" Cry aloud, spare not, lift uj) thy voice like a trumpet, and show my 
people their transgressions I First of all, then, the Anti-Slavery work 
is a religious duty. It is not by the observance of orthodox or other 
forms and ceremonies, that the national sin is to be purged away, and 
our nation's destiny made glorious and happy. We cannot be as strict 
in these things as were the Jewish people, even when filling up the 
measure of their iniquity by the crucifixion of the Heavenly Redeemer. 
Our duty consists not in the belief or rejection of any abstract doctrine, 
so much as it does in the daily application of the example and precepts 
of Christ to every situation and act of life. And we must not only act 
against the wicked Slave power, but we must earnestly, habitually and 
constantly seek the guidance and blessing of God in our eflbrts to remove 
Slavery from our land. The most difficult and arduous work is that 
which the true Christian Reformer is noio seeking to advance. He 
needs the wisdom of God, the whole panoply of truth to arm him for 
the tremendous struggle which God's children are now waging against 
Wrong. The praying spirit which our Lord manifested in his arduous 
work, his spirit of heavenly meekness, of condescending humility, of 
entire devotedness to truth, of all-pervading love, of sweet resignation 
to the Divine will, of self-sacrifice, of unshaken faith in God, of fearless 
faithfulness in the discharge of duty, that noble spirit which shed 
such a light from the bloody cross, that the Centurion, upon whose 
heart it shone, cried out, " Truly this was the Son of God," — must guide 
and fill the Reformer in this work, or he will fail. But if he wait on 
the Lord, he shall mount up on wings, run the race and not weary, 
walk the path of duty on to its joyous end, and not faint by the way. 
Brothers and Sisters of all names and parties, who are engaged in this 
heavenly Anti-Slavery work, I entreat you, pray for Divine wisdom, 
for brotherly harmony and union among all the friends of truth and 
freedom, and for speedy success in this great work of God. 

Another duty which now lays its irresistible claim upon every 
Christian man, woman and child of the land, is to seek for and to 
disseminate all possible information on this subject. There is a wide 
spread, and most criminal ignorance about this stupendous system of 
oppression. There are many professed abolitionists who fail to exert a 
decided influence for good in this momentous struggle for want of that 
definite and well digested knowledge of slavery which they might have 
gained by hearing the lecturer — by reading anti-slavery papers and 
documents, and by protracted and earnest reflection. And what follows 
from this culpable negligence ? When such an unfurnished and infinished 
abolitionist encounters the caviler, the answer of truth is not ready, 
and falsehood triumphs. When he meets the honest seeker for truth, a 
golden opportunity is lost for baptizing an earnest heart into the love 



31 

and practice of the Christian spirit of reform. And, worst of all, when 
the faithful servant of God comes before the people with the truth, and 
declares, in all faithfulness the whole counsel of God, he is offended, 
and not knowing what he does, cries out in harmony with a wicked 
world, " crucify him, crucify him.'''' This thorough knowledge of the 
evils and enormities of slavery is of the last importance, and compared 
with its worth, can be obtained at a very trifling expense. Only a week 
ago to-day there was made, in this place, the ablest and best exposition 
of the evils of the Fugitive Slave Bill that has yet been given in the 
town of Concord, by Wendell Phillips, of Boston. No one who loves 
truth and justice could have heard that masterly expose of wrong 
without delight and profit. And yet but a portion of the professed 
abolition people were present ; and, no doubt, some of them deprived 
themselves of a rich treasure of important knowledge through mere 
prejudice of mind. Is this magnanimous or right ? Again, I ask how 
many of the professed friends of liberty take and read an anti-slavery 
paper .'' Not one-third of them I presume. I submit to your own candid 
judgment that you ought to seek, by all means, to inform yourselves on 
this great question. Every family in Concord ought to be visited by 
a weekly paper true to the demands of humanity. Every voter in the 
State ought to read the able and glowing speech of Horace Mann on 
the Fugitive Slave Bill, just published by the enterprising and earnest 
Commonwealth. Every man who takes the miserable, love-sick Olive 
Branch, Flag of our (Jnion, " et id omne genus,^'' or the dishonest 
political papers like the Advertiser and Post, or the pro-slavery papers, 
falsely called religious, like the Christian Register, and the New York 
Observer, ought to change them for the papers devoted to the good, the 
welfare of mankind. 

We ought also to inform others, our friends and our neighbors, to 
urge upon their notice with persistent kindness, the facts fitted to arouse 
every conscience to instant, earnest and continued action for God and 
humanity against the slave-power. Every document, every speech, 
and every sermon, which brings the light and power of truth with 
honesty and ability against the dark atrocities of slavery, should be 
freely given up to the cause, and efficient measures adopted by the 
friends of truth to scatter these olive leaves of love over the land. 
You may be assured, my friends, that now is the most favorable 
moment yet seen under this government to scatter the good seeds in 
the hearts of the people. Men will now pause from party strife, and 
from the hurry of business, and read an able article on this important 
subject. There are ten ready this day to read where there was one a 
few years since. Let us not permit the golden opportunity to pass un- 
improved, but while the fallow ground is broken in the hearts of an 
outraged people by the plow-share of this fugitive slave bill, let us cast 
the seeds of truth into the rich furrows, and depend upon it God will 
give us a glorious harvest. 

It is our duty again to reform ourselves wherein we are wrong. 
There is a fearful wickedness in the prejudice of the American heart 



32 

against the negro. How often do we hear men say of this oppressed 
class, " Oh, but the negro is a different race from the Saxon, and 7nust, 
by a law of our nature, ever be an inferior while he lives here with us. 
He never can be a i7ian in this land, but let him go to Liberia, and 
there he may rise to the dignity of manhood.'''' All I can say in reply 
to this statement of prejudice and pride is this : If so indeed it be, then 
Christ died in vain, and the sooner this crazy, selfish, cruel world is 
burned up, the better for the Universe. But there is no semblance of 
truth in this infernal American creed. It is sheer prejudice and cruel 
pride. Douglass, Crafts, Ward, Pennington, Remond, Smith, Jones, 
Bibb, and others too numerous to mention, members of the despised 
African race, in spite of difficulties which we are unable to appreciate, 
stand forth among our ablest and best men. The Christian among us, 
who is the ablest and most interesting in our prayer meetings of all who 
come thither, is brother Garrison, a negro. And now bear this in mind, 
all of you, the negro has the same inherent and inalienable right to a 
home in this land, with all the comforts and privileges thereof, that 
you or I have. This is his native land, and he is our brother. If he 
falls in this strife, we fall likewise. We rise in prosperity and joy, 
or sink in ruin together. Every privilege which we claim in the 
State, in Society, in the bosom of the church, is his right as well as 
oiirs. If we cavil at this or deny to him these rights, then it is a just 
retribution upon us when we are deprived of our own. I do not say 
that you are guilty of harboring in your hearts this cruel prejudice ; but 
I do unhesitatingly affirm that nothing is more unchristian, nothing 
more opposed to the precepts of the Gospel, than this remorseless 
prejudice which so many cherish in their hearts against the negro 
race. 

Again we are in duty bound to refuse all fellowship to the slaveholder 
and to his abettor. 

I could not in conscience, and I would not for my life, by any act of 
mine, acknowledge the minister, who assumes such a wicked attitude in 
regard to this fugitive slave bill, as Dewey and Rogers have done, to 
be a minister of Christ. I believe that such men are undisguisedly 
and only ministers of unrightousness. 

" Depend upon it," says a correspondent of the Free Presbyterian, 
" that when we are dead and gone, the historian of the Church will 
mark the year 1850 as an era when blank, unvarnished infidelity was 
taught in Christian pulpits — when the Government commanded the cit- 
izen to trample humanity and the law of God in the dust, and the Clergy 
stood by consenting and co-operating." 

I submit to the conscience of each one who hears me, that it is your 
duty to refuse Christian fellowship to the slave-holder and his abettor. 
And that you are sacredly bound to vote for no man to be a ruler in the 
land, who holds slaves or supports slavery. ' 

But there is still another and most important duty which the Christian 
is bound to perform. Union with all honest and pure men and women 
who will come together on the great platform of humanity, for the 
overthrow of slavery. 



33 

The South presents an undivided front on this question. Southern 
men cast to the winds all minor considerations when the question of 
slavery comes up for discussion or for action. In this way for sixty 
years have they been victorious over the divided and betrayed people 
of the Northern States. But the forces of Liberty are divided. Their 
disjointed and ill-directed efforts result in no permanent overthrow of 
of the slave-power. I am told on the one hand and in this State, be- 
ware of Garrison and his friends, for they are infidels, bad men and 
women, disturbers of the church, and rebels against the jrovernment. 
But what is the simple truth > Why Garrison and his friends have 
done more to arouse this nation to an abiding sense «f the great peril 
impending over our precious fabric of freedom, from the slave-power 
tlmn all other classes of men. You say they denounce the church. 
Well this is their justification for so doing. The popular church of the 
land has stood and now stubbornly stands in the way of freedom, and 
Christ's ministers cannot declare the whole counsel of God without a 
stern exposition of the character of a faithless ministry and a false 
church. I know these devoted men and women and have watched 
their course for years, and I do know that they are not open to the 
charge of infidelity. By the rule our Savior himself gives us, I meas- 
ure them and find that they are Christians. " By their fruits shall ye 
know them.'''' 

Nor in saying this, do I endorse all their theological views, nor 
agree entirely with them in regard to the measures proposed. But I 
see them in the field, yea the pioneers there, striking stout blows for 
freedom, and carrying confusion into the ranks of the enemy. With 
the generous ardor of a brother in the noble cause of humanity, I 
rush to their side, and join in their warfare. 

On the other hand, and in another State I am told, beware of Gerrit 
Smith and his chosen friends in the Anti-Slavery cause, for they are 
radicals and fanatics, and you can never be popular if you act with 
them. Be it so, if you please, in this present hour, but remember it is 
far better to be right, than to be popular, and remember, too, there 
comes a time whose dawning light may guide our footsteps, when the 
right will be popular, and wrong will hide its hideous head from the 
scornful gaze of the world. In this proscribed band of Reformers, I 
see some of the noblest and truest men and women that live, and 
principles bright with the truth and love of Christ, for which they 
earnestly contend, and I am ever happy to strive with them for the 
redemption of this world from all oppression, and for the establishment 
of the one universal loving brotherhood in Jesus Christ. 

In taking leave of this topic, I wish to impress upon your minds this 
manifest truth. Unio7i among all honest and ptire men and women of 
all denominations and shades of opinion, founded on a full renunciation 
of the sectarian spirit, and on a cordial adoption of the spirit of Univer- 
sal Brotherhood, is the one ever essential condition of success in the 
great struggle to free the slave. 

There is no service you can render to God so acceptable as this, to 



34 

succor and relieve his oppressed, his suffering child. So highly does 
God regard this service, that he records it in the Book of Life, and in 
the great Day rewards the doer for these acts of Love and Kindness, 
on the ground that they were rendered to Himself. But so sternly 
does God abhor contempt of man in his suffering need, that to him who 
has been guilty of slighting and despising the needy and the oppressed. 
He will say at that time of final award, " Inasmuch as ye refused to 
minister to these suffering children of oppression, ye despised and hated 
me ; depart, ye workers of iniquity." 

" Who shall avenge the slave ? I stood and cried : 

The earth, the earth, the echoing sea replied. 

I turned me to the ocean, but each wave 

Declined to be the avenger of the slave. 

Who shall avenge the slave ? My specie cried : 

The winds, the tiood, the lightning of the sky. 

I turned to these, from them one echo ran, 

The right avenger of the slave is man. 

Man was my fellow : In his sight I stood, 

Wept and besought him by the voice of blood, 

Sternly he looked, as proud on earth he trod. 

Then said, the avenger of the slave is God. 

I looked in prayer toward heaven, awhile 't Avas still, 

And then, methought, God's voice replied, I will. 



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